Changing just a few words in the way clergy see themselves can transform their ministry and mission to their communities.
A moment’s lesson for a lifetime
Rev. Brad Laurvick (twitter) is a United Methodist pastor in Denver, Colorado. He recently shared with me a moment in time that transformed his life and ministry:
The first day of my church polity class, the professor, whom I knew, walked into the room and introduced himself. He said “my name is Mike Nickerson and I’m the senior pastor of Parker United Methodist Church.” Then he asked us, “what’s wrong with that?”
No one else in the room knew him, so I raised my hand and said, “you are Mike Nickerson and you are the senior pastor of Parker UMC.”
He replied, “I didn’t ask if it was correct, I asked what was wrong with it. 100 years ago I would have walked in here and said ‘My name is Mike Nickerson and I am the Methodist pastor to the people of Parker.‘ When my appointment was read the bishop would have said I was appointed to ‘the city of Parker’ and my congregation would have understood that I was there to serve outside our walls”
This interaction changed my life and ministry.
Community first
Today, one of the ways how Rev. Brad lives out this transformative moment is by serving the community first. Recently, Brad volunteered to scoop ice cream at a neighborhood ice creamery (which I’ve been to–it is yummy!). The few hours brought summer levels of business in January as his church and community partners stopped by for ice cream. The creamery contributed 10% of those sales to support not Brad’s church, but rather a local tutoring program. The publicity yielded several new tutors for the program…along with several families who also asked about the church.
Just as Brad was transformed by a simple change of words, so also churches find transformation in a similar change of word. In the 2014 book The New Parish, the authors talk about how churches should reframe their self-concept to a much older word: parish. While seemingly only used by Catholic churches or regions in New Orleans, parish extends the church’s responsibility beyond their church doors and to the community around it, with varying levels of success over the centuries:
Since Christendom, [the] institutional church more or less dictated the form of the neighborhood. The church that is emerging in the parish today is different in many ways. The first difference is that the neighborhood—in all its diversity—has a voice that contributes to the form of the church. There is a growing sense that the Spirit works through the relationships of the neighborhood to teach us what love and faithfulness look like in that particular context.
The New Parish, page 31
By reframing their existence as outward instead of inward, and how wisdom and forms come from outside their walls, churches that embrace this simple change of phrase will experience transformation.
Cooperation, not competition
As depicted above, agriculture and civil engineering tries to pixellate a fractal planet. Our churches are likewise divided up into neat boxes of who has authority over where, which doesn’t always fit organic communities. But a new sense of Parish brings with it cooperation between churches, even small struggling ones, that can overcome competitive aspects to bring the diversity of their gifts to bear on common problems. From The New Parish:
The new parish is also different in the way diverse church expressions with different names and practices are learning to live out their faith together as the unified church in and among the neighborhood. Whereas the old parish was often dictated by a single denominational outlook that functioned as law, the new parish can include many expressions of the church living in community together in the neighborhood.
Not only do parishioners learn to love and listen to neighbors from other church expressions in the parish, they also seek out partnerships with people from other faith perspectives who have common hopes for the neighborhood.
The New Parish, page 31
Within a denomination as big as the United Methodist Church, it would seem that churches are assigned “their area” and fellow churches better respect their assigned regions and not do active ministry there without permission.
Recent efforts have turned that idea on its head. Six churches in a medium-sized city south of Portland, Oregon, recently banded together as the Salem Keizer Cooperative to better coordinate mission and ministry in their region. From UMC.org:
Congregations have already started their first project: working in the food ministry. The six churches host four food banks, Pitney reported. By working together to serve the food pantries, overall service will increase.
Salem-Keizer also is coordinating on pastoral care and developing an area-wide youth ministry.
“One of the immediate things we’re doing is a monthly preaching rotation,” said Bateman. “All of the preachers will get a chance to preach to every church in the ministry.”
By seeing themselves not in competition (even within a single denomination), these churches are modeling what the New Parish might look like for them.
Pastor TO the people of ______
I’m inspired by Brad’s teacher from seminary to introduce myself the same way: “I am a Methodist Pastor to the people of Portland, Oregon.” It brings with it a wider sense and scope to what my ministry responsibilities really are. And by emphasizing that shared identity, local churches better understand they don’t have “their” pastor, but share that pastor with a community to which all are called to serve.
Thoughts? Your turn:
- In what ways is your pastor (or you) actively serving the community even when the local church has no tangible benefit?
- In what ways has your community shaped your local church’s mission and outreach in ways you never would have expected?
Thanks for reading, for shares on social media, and for living out your call to ministry in your community!
I’ve been actively doing this now for 3 years. I introduce myself to church insiders as “Cynthia Kepler-Karrer, pastoring Northeast Austin and leading the congregation at Memorial UMC.” To everyone else, I just leave it at Northeast Austin. On my consultation forms, I spend time not only describing what the church needs, but also what our mission field needs. On my charge conference forms, I describe the state of the mission field before the state of the church. And I can tell you for 100% sure that it has changed my approach to so much of ministry. It is wider and richer and messier. We talk about the impact of our decisions on the community as much as their impact on the membership. I hope that we can begin at an institutional level to ask questions from this framework rather than questions which pertain to “are you just keeping the membership satisfied?”
I hope the Eucharist is also celebrated among and between the varrying members of the parish. It is at the heart of our community as Christians. It’s what binds us together, nourishes us, and commissions us outward.
This is how I’ve introduced myself for at least 10 years, “I’m Karen Munson, and I work with the people of _________UMC in serving their community.”
I love this. Our church is struggling with this right now. Our Sr. Minister has a strong heart to serve the community. The problem is that some, perhaps many in the congregation are much more concerned about serving those within the aging walls of the congregation. I recently read a letter by a veteran church member who complained that the Sr Minister was doing too much outside of our walls and ignoring our own. While there is a balance, the priority is clear to me. Get involved in something bigger than oneself. That goes for individuals and churches.
I basically agree with everything you’re saying, but I wish you had taken it a little deeper and addressed the tension that exists between those two roles and the degree to which they require completely different skill sets. We’re still using models of leadership formation and accountability that are more consistent with treating clergy as pastors OF a church. Our metrics, our evaluation tools, etc. are all stuck in the attractional model we claim to be trying to leave behind.
I also wish we’d be more honest about the human side of the transition that is underway. We’ve spend several generations promoting and equipping leaders for a model in which the pastor is the leader OF a church. That is the unspoken “bargain” that participants in these congregations had with their pastors – that is the “deal” they agreed to. Now we’re asking many of these wonderful, faithful, folks to agree to a completely different arrangement, and too often berating them as being “stuck” when they don’t fall in line.
I love this!!! I just recently took on the pastoral role of a small town in Hampton IA, and have been working really hard to start the process of redefining, not only my role, but the role of our Church within our community. I’ve already started working very closely with our Chamber of Commerce to identify ways in which we can serve the community and change people’s perceptions. Love the book “The Parish”, I would recommend that book, as well as “Slow Church” to any and everyone who would take the time to ponder anew the role and place of the Church alongside the community it serves.
This raises many questions. First, in a largely secular/Jewish community, I can’t imagine anyone responding, “oh goody, the Methodist minister we were hoping for!” When did they get a vote about who was going to minister “to” them?
Second, when someone goes to seminary and spends all that time (and denominational money) studying scripture and pastoral care — is that not because we’d collectively decided that’s what we needed? I thought the minister was there to equip and encourage the people to do ministry–which might include ice cream scooping — no ministerial degree required. I don’t doubt that the minister might be involved in the community, might even do a little scooping, but if I wonder why our laity are so poorly formed, this might give me an answer.
Wasn’t a longtime argument against this understanding of ministry the idea that we ought not professionalize “care of our neighbor,” so that it is the job of the clergy, rather than the ministry of the whole church?
I wonder what is more important to the person with any concern or issue, what your title represents and says about who you are affiliated with? Did Christ have credentials and a cross around his neck to identify his purpose? As a laity mission person my first duty is to care, support, work, treat or assist those who ask for my efforts.
I had a recent comment with my rector, who mentioned he was my rector and friend? One is fomal and strictly by appointment. My friend came to me because I requested him, like the centurion in the scripture story, (MK 8), he goes where he is ordered, comes when he is summoned.
I agree the needs of organizations and institutions are the block in the path of faith. Bishop’s do not appoint they assign, parish members arrive, never told where to go to seek grace, mercy, hope, trust and comfort from the over whelming world that is secular. I encourage you all to read between the lines of biblical words, find the warmth of a light of compassion, care and consideration whenever you come across the marginalized, oppressed and hard hearted where they are, they exist in far greater numbers then refugees, stragglers and displaced people in centers. You will find peace, hope, gratitude and belief in yourself and your purpose once you drop the names and titles and refer to yourself as a mission on the path to sharing faith, in various expressions
FAITH IN VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS
CELTIC CENTURION
[url=http://www.ooobrand.com/bags/list_9_32.html]クロノグラフの完全な12時間を測定するbiコンパックスクロノグラフである。腕時計を持って秒針が動作していないことを意味します、あなたはすべての時間、クロノグラフ機能を持っていない限り。ダイヤルは、下位ダイヤルを取り入れるために再設計されました、そして最終的には完全に対称形である。カルティエの移動分スケールリングアウトがフランジリングを以前に裸の毛羽仕上げの金属仕上げで。この時計の外観と変化はより大きく見え、ダイヤルすることの効果があります。ダイヤルは現在より大きいことが、より個別のアワーマーカー、半分のローマ数字と半分のバトンマーカーの形を再び取るカリフォルニアダイヤル？のこのカルティエのバージョンです）。あなたはダイヤルの上に装飾の同じタイプがあります、しかし、すべて感じの接地に対称形のデザインを与えられます。 カルティエ 時計コピー の「拡張」と日付ウインドウを保持したが、それは6時に移動しました。すべてのすべてで、私はダイヤルの多くが好きです、しかし、1つのカルティエは、少しあまりに短される主の手に設計さを感じます。[/url]